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Monday, May 9, 2011

Rye Spelt Bread

Have you ever gone into a grocery store and bought ingredients because you have always wanted to use them, but really had no particular plan? That happened to me a little while ago. I was in a health food store (a very dangerous place for me) and got stuck in the bulk food section. I kept thinking about how I really needed to make more whole grain breads. So, I bagged up a few cups of spelt flour, rye flour, sorghum flour and, well, even more and took them home to my freezer. This last week, I decided to tackle "odd flours."

I found a recipe for rye bread that had no caraway in it and then tweaked it so much that it hardly resembled the original. I threw in spelt flour for part of the all purpose flour. I cut the three sweeteners down to one. I added a bit more salt. You get the idea. The result was a lovely brown bread (I used molasses as the sweetener) that became a fantastic breakfast toast...especially with peanut butter or a great side with butter at dinner.

Rye Spelt Bread: (slightly resembling a recipe from Taste at Home)
1 Tbsp instant yeast
1 1/2 cup + 2 Tbsp warm water
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup oil
3 Tbsp molasses
1 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups dark rye flour
1 cup spelt flour
4 cups all purpose flour
In a large mixing bowl, dissolve the yeast in the warm water. Warm up the milk in the microwave until it is no longer cold. Add the milk, oil, molasses and salt to the yeast mixture. Stir in the rye, spelt and 2 cups of the all purpose flour. Continue to add the rest of the all purpose flour until a nice soft dough forms. Knead with a dough hook or by hand for 5-10 minutes. Cover it and let it rise in a warm place until double (about an hour). Punch down and shape into two loaves and place into two greased loaf pans. Cover and let rise until at least 1 inch about the rim of the pan. Bake 325 degrees for 30 minutes or until done. Brush top of loaves with butter. Let cool on a wire rack.

Hi Kristen! It's really amazing that you can "tweak" baking recipes. For a person who doesn't bake, I really don't know where and how to start tweaking! It's easier to tweak regular food recipe...but baking... oh my I can't taste it and I can't guess how it's like until it's baked. That's so hard! You made a very nice bread!